Improvement in horseshoe-machines



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE- IMPROVEMENT IN HoRsEsHoE-MACHINES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 38,804, dated June 9, 1863.

Figure 1 is a top view, Fig. 2 an end elevation, and Fig. 3 a vertical and longitudinal section, of it.`

The nature of my invention consists in the combination of a gripper and its operative mechanism with the said wheel, the shoe-blank former, the actuator, and the swaging-rollers; also, in the combination of certain guide rails and an abutment with the wheel, the shoeblank former, and the swaging-rollcrs or mech-g anism.

In the said drawings, A denotes the frame of the machine, the same serving to support in suitable boxes the shaft B of a heavy vertical wheel,W, which, during the operation of the machine, not only performs the function of supporting important parts of the operative mechanism, but serves the purpose of a ywheel, and thereby, by its momentum while in revolution, facilitates or materially aids them in successful action. The shoe-blank former (l is Xed to the periphery of the wheel NV, and, furthermore, there is, in advance of the said former C and on the said periphery, a tapering or camshaped gripper, D, which consists of a curved arm hinged at its front end to the wheel and furnished with a spring, E, for elevating it so far above the shoe-former as to enable a blank or bar ot' metal to be converted into a horseshoe to be placed under- Death it and directly in advance of the said former C. A roller, F, supported by a strut, G, extended from the frame A, serves to torce the gripper down upon the blank after it may have been placed upon the wheel, and during the revolution of the wheel. Two inclined rails, H H, and an abutment, I, arranged on the upper part of the frame A, and with respect to the wheel as shown in the drawings, serve to aid in placing the shoe-blank in a proper position to be seized by the wheel.:

While the wheel may be in motion the blank is to be laid on the rails and with one end of it against the abutment. At the same time, or immediately afterward, the blank, at its middle, should be pressed underneath the gripper and upon the periphery of the wheel. As the wheel may advance the gripper will be forced down upon the blank and will hold it firmly in place against the shoe-former C. To co-operate with the said former C there are two swaging-rollers, K K, which are held or carried by the shorter arms of two levers, L L, whose fulcra a a are supported by adjustable slides b b, supported in boxes c c, affixed on the top of the latter or frame A. In each of the longer arms of the said levers there is a friction-roller, d, the said levers being arranged with respect to the wheel as shown in the drawings. The said levers are to be actuated or operated by a wedge-shaped cam or actuator, M, or by one or more cams or equivalent devices, the said actuator or devices being iiXed either wholly or partially, as the case may require, on the periphery of the wheel and in advance of or in a proper position with respect to the gripper. The actuator or the cam, by which the levers L L are operated, should be shaped so as to cause the rollers K K not only to bend the horseshoe-blank around the former C, but

swage it down at the heels to the necessary taper or form. The flanges f f ot' the said swaging-rollers serve to keep the blank to its proper thickness at the heels of the shoe.

For the purpose ot' forcing and keeping the swaging-rollers apart from one another after they may have performed their oftice on a shoe-blank, as well as to serve as a stop, against which the blank may be pushed while in the act of being introduced into the machine, there are on the periphery ot' the wheel two cam-ii]- lets, N N, which are arranged as shown in the drawings, and have their front ends curved or made cam-shaped, the same being as shown at g g in top view in Fig. 4.

IThe wheel, when the machine is in use, is to have a continuous rotary motion in one direction, as indicated by the arrow k.v It may, however, have a reciprocating motion. During` the rotary motion a shoe blank or short bar ot metal will not only be bent and converted into a horseshoe,` but it-Will be discharged from the Wheel and `the former 0,'from which' it `will fallby its gravitatin g power while the said former may be descending toward the'lowest position it may have in its circle of revolution.

The blank-former and the devices for operat-` ing, either in Whole or in part, the levers of the swaging-rollers may be arranged, as described, on a reciprocating slider carrier or car-V riage, instead of being placed on a wheel, but iu this case the discharge of the blank could not be effected as itisby means of 4arotary Wheel. The rotary Wheel has, therefore, an..

important advantage over a slideror carriage, and performs a function not incident thereto.-`

URIAH BILLINGs.

Witnesses E. W. HARNEY, E. T. LEONARD. 

